The implications of structuring my new novella after an LDS sacrament meeting

When I sat down to write my novella The Unseating of Dr. Smoot, I had two things in hand:

1. A basic idea of the character and situation: an LDS woman whose initial tenure application at UW-Madison has been denied travels to Utah for a visit to BYU and with friends and family (if you want background on the inspirations that went into that, including a work of French cinema as well as other behind the scenes tidbits, sign up for my newsletter).

2. The desire to come up with a formal structure for it.

I jotted down the first idea in October 2020. I revisited that idea on Dec. 26, 2021, and came up with the second idea and began writing the first draft of the novella the very next day and had the first draft (of around 20k words) completed by May 21, 2022.

The writing went at a pretty fast (or at least steady) clip for me, especially considering spring is my busiest time for work. The major reason is that the formal structure made it easier for me to know what to write next.

Why use a formal structure?

Using a formal structure for a work of fiction—such as a shopping list, the steps in a ritual (or any process), a poetic or musical form— is both helpful and a risk. It’s helpful in that you immediately have an outline for your work—and not just an outline, but one that has a specific shape to it, a narrative conceit/frame that is apparent to the readers. It’s a risk because not every fictional narrative works well when poured into a specific shape, especially at novel length.

I knew that I wanted The Unseating of Dr. Smoot to be novella length and that novellas (and short novels) lend themselves to formal structures because they lack the bagginess that (clasically) comes with novel-length fiction.

I also had grown increasingly interested in Mormon aesthetics and notions of what unique forms and aesthetics are available to Mormon artists.

So I decided that if I was going to write this novella, it needed to have something to its’ structure that was inspired by Mormonism.

Why use a sacrament meeting?

The obvious place to look was the temple, but that felt too lofty, too symbolically loaded for what I was trying to do with the character. The overall plot, after all, was a trip back home. That doesn’t mean, of course, that it’d be impossible to use the stages (or other aspects) of the temple ceremony and apply that to a rather mundane plot. I’ve read James Joyce’s Ulysses. I know what’s possible there. But I wanted something that tied more directly to the everyday experience of Mormons.

And looking back on my notes, it’s wild how quickly the scenes fell into place as soon as I jotted down the agenda of a typical LDS sacrament meeting—from the prelude music though the administration of the sacrament and the various talks all the way to the postlude music.

It helped that because this was a trip, there was also limit to when and where every scene could take place (from a late Monday morning through an early Thursday evening), and so that added another layer of structure to the novella. It also fed into the idea of using a sacrament meeting as the inspiration from the plot: the Sunday meeting sets the model and then Monday through the rest of the days of the week follow from it.

How defined of an outline I want to write towards varies for me from project to project, and usually I only want to know the beginning and ending and work to connect the two.

But there was something quite exciting by the way all the scenes snapped into place, an excitement that, thankfully, carried into the actual writing.

What did using a sacrament meeting do to the plot?

Here’s the major problem, though: a sacrament meeting doesn’t follow a typical story structure of rising action with a climax and then a denouement.

The ritual of the sacrament comes much too early in the meeting!

With The Unseating of Dr. Smoot, I knew that I wanted the Administration of the Sacrament chapter to correspond with her giving a talk at BYU on landscape and the Gilead novels of Marilynne Robinson. But that happens Tuesday afternoon in the time of the story. We still have two more days of the trip to cover.

And yet, that was also exciting to me. Here was an opportunity to test if a narrative structure derived from Mormonism could work.

It might not work for some readers.

Here’s what I think it does: as a weekly ritual, partaking in the sacrament is meant to echo into the rest of our daily lives. It’s less of a culmination and more of a launch pad. And the talks and music that are given after the sacrament is administered are meant to be flavored by that ordinance, a way to bring individual (the talks) and communal (tthe music) expressions of faith and lived experience as a way to deepen our understanding of what the commitment at the core of the sacrament prayer means in (hopefully) real terms.

All of which is to say that I learned something about Mormon aesthetics and about the LDS sacrament meeting by choosing to use this structure for the novella.

As Dr. Smoot experiences the “talks” portion of the structure––conversations with a niece who is a BYU student, her best friend from college, and her widowed dad, she explores angles/aspects of her interest in faith, art, and her own personal history, all of which also had informed the talk she gives on the Gilead novels.

Plot is meant to reveal character (and maybe even lead to character change). Certainly, try-fail cycles and rising action can accomplish that. But perhaps other narrative structures can reveal to us different aspects of character.

Intensity that fades

There’s another key feature, I think, to the way sacrament meetings structure the lives of those who participate in it (and this is possibly even more keenly felt by active LDS in relation to general conference): you begin the week with the intensity of the ritual of the sacrament, and that perhaps brings with it renewed resolve, maybe even clarity (maybe even revelation), but then as the meeting goes on and then as the week takes place, that intensity dissipates and what was resolved may or may not happen and what was revealed may be useful or may cloud up again, and the cycle takes place all over again the next week, hopefully in a way that’s more effective than previous weeks, but more likely, some weeks (months, years) are better than others.

One response I’ve often had after reading a novel, especially a work of epic fantasy or a mystery or technothriller is: okay, now what? How do these characters live now that the action is over? What are the repercussions of all they have experienced?

Triumphs are so often short lived, and the harder work is to battle again—or even better: build a life, relationships, a community, a society out of the aftermath.

The conversations and other experiences (including a visit to the Springville Museum of Art) Dr. Smoot has in the aftermath of her presentation are both productive and not. And they lead her to not any firm decisions about her professional and personal future, but a better understanding of the implications of the various futures that may be available to her.

And, sure, it’s an understanding that will likely change as she gets closer to having to make some final decisions, but just because you arrive at a certain state doesn’t mean it won’t need to be renewed (renewed, perhaps, on a weekly basis).

What other Mormon narrative structures exist?

How well I succeed in applying a Mormon structure to The Unseating of Dr. Smoot is up to others to decide, but I’m pleased enough with the results that I want to continue to explore this terrain as both a fiction writer and a literary critic.

What other works of Mormon art use interesting Mormon structures and aesthetics? What else is out there that could be drawn upon?

Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

• The temple ceremony and other apsects of the experience of attending the temple

• Other ordinances such as baptism and blessings for the sick (hmmm, I may need to write a story where oil [but not literally oil] is acquired, consecrated, stored, used to annoint, and then sealed with a blessing)

• The plan of salvation (as it’s typically illustrated with the pre-existence, mortal life, three kingdoms, etc.)

• The LDS mission experience (well covered overtly in Mormon fiction, but what if you just take the structure of it and apply it to a different milieu?)

• Excommunication and the path to refellowship? (this would be a rather fraught one)

• The vision of the tree of life (or Nephi’s dream as a whole?)

• Any number of church activities (I’ve toyed with writing a novella that takes place over a youth conference)

• Any number of parables and examples from the various scriptural works (I’m thinking, in particular, of all the nested narratives and narrative echoes in the Book of Mormon)

• Any number of Mormon folk tales (there are quite a few the Three Nephites encounter stories [I’ve written a couple], but is there a structure or vibe to those stories that could be used in an interesting way apart from an encounter with a translated being?)

I’m interested in what you all think.

I’m also interested in further exploring uniquely Mormon aesthetic approaches and welcome reading recommendations and thoughts in the comments below.